Tag Archives: yard routine

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The pens stretched as far as the eye could see and we couldn’t just put her anywhere.

I jogged or rather slithered up to the farm building at the top of the hill, while Liz played British Bulldog with the pig – it must not reach the road!

At the top of the hill there wasn’t a soul about. However, on the horizon was a dot. The dot grew bigger and bigger and as it grew so did my euphoria as I realized that it was the pig man on his tractor.

The pig man got closer and closer, mud splattering and water spraying.

I waved at him. He waved back. And carried on waving and driving.

With my waving becoming crazy and my wellies sinking in the mud, the pig man stopped.

“You’ve got a loose pig,” I shouted above the noise of the engine.

“A what?”

“A loose pig!”

“You better climb in!” he said.

Not standing on ceremony I pulled myself up into the cab of the tractor, a new experience.

My mother always said ‘don’t get into strangers’ cars’. There had been no mention of tractors.

We bounced down to Liz and the pig: the condensation running down the window.

We reached Liz and the pig and jumped down.

Meanwhile, Kerstin from next door had driven round the other way in her Range Rover to head off the pig.

She stopped to talk to the pig man.

She talked and talked and the pig ran off down the track.

Liz and l looked at each other in disbelief and yelled, “the pig!”

The pig man splashed after the pig, Kerstin drove off and Liz and I waited in the driving rain.

Finally having caught up with the pig, the pig man brought her back to us. He looked at her tag, ran his finger over his chart and he nodded, the rain dripping off his nose.

I think he could have managed but as he was rurally handsome, we helped him get her back to her pen and her piglets.

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I am streaming with cold. I’ve not had a cold in ages, which is probably why I am feeling so awful. I have forgotten how horrible having a cold actually is.

I didn’t feel great at work on Sunday, in fact in the afternoon I felt a bit sick and very tired, but I carried on and managed to get all the horses in before the rain closed in – apart from Back Legs Bella and Ted the Teeth, whom Laura had asked to be left out.

Leaving them out came as music to my ears, as Ted is once again a nightmare, probably to do with being fed too much and doing no work.

There is a link between doing no work and being fed too much, Laura liking Ted the Teeth to look like a show pony, that is to say, fat and to keep him fat, she has to feed him a lot and when he’s fed a lot he is unmanageable. He was fed a lot before and little Grace, who was ‘loaning’ him, with Laura’s help, was bucked off at least once every time she rode him, so she’s no longer loaning him, as finally Grace’s mum realised it wasn’t normal to be bucked off every time you got on. And so now Ted the Teeth is getting just as much food if not more, is doing no work at all, and is unmanageable verging on dangerous. God help us all!

However, my delight at not having to bring them in was tempered by Bella looking as if she was about to jump the fence any minute and bring herself in – something she has done before on more than one occasion.

I think next time Laura asks me to leave them out, I’ll make sure Bella’s stable door is open so she can just run straight in, should she jump the fence.

Laura and Chris arrived just as I was leaving. Their humour matched the grey sky and drizzle.

Laura dispatched her brooding welsh husband to muck out while she went to collect Back Legs Bella and Ted the Teeth from the field.

I walked back across my newly swept yard to see it covered in clods of earth from Bella and Ted’s feet.

I couldn’t bear to watch any more. Doubtless it would soon be covered with straw from the brooding welsh husband’s wheelbarrow.

Laura has always blamed Dave (who pronounces his name ‘Doof’) for all the straw on the main yard, which is actually hard to do now as all the horses on the main yard are on shavings.

I imagine she will have left the feed room door open too.

I think I am getting Obsessive Compulsive Disorder about sweeping and yard tidiness!